A simple fix to balance fighters vs. casters ?

[Jon_Dahl]

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but how about this house rule:

Every level that you have in a PC-class that has a good base attack bonus progression (+1 per level ratio) increases your weapon and unarmed damage by 1.

Reasoning: I feel that casters overshadow fighter (and other noncasters) after mid-levels. However if all 10th-level fighters with a longswords would hit for 1d8+level+other modifiers for damage, this would even things.

Of course this would raise questions, but in overall I feel that this would make sense and give some edge to higher level fighters. At least it would make a bit more sense for an epic level fighter to challenge an epic level wizard (I would still bet on the wizard).

Any thoughts? I know that this idea will not be well-received, but at least we can go over again the fundamental problems between noncasters and casters.

 

[MadLuke]

I will not even consider it.

Bye, MadLuke.

 

[Dandu]

Look, it's not that I don't want a balanced game - that's part of why I'm working on Legend - but giving melee characters more damage is not going to solve the imbalance because the issue is not damage, but the fact that melee has a painful lack of options at higher levels.

You have clerics who can Plane Shift to their god's domain for their daily prayers, wizards who can teleport between planets, druids who can turn into the Monster of the Week multiple times per day, and Sorcerers who can bend the fabric of reality to their whim through sheer willpower... and fighters who hit things. Hard. With their muscles.

That is the problem here.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The difference between casters and non-casters isn't damage. It's the sheer power of spells that daunts most anyone who can't cast them. Possibly the only Fighter-redo I have seen that effectively puts a Fighter at a similar level to a caster is My Spin on the Fighter (warning: quite long) - Giant in the Playground Forums.

It's insanely long, but the potential it has is nothing short of incredible. There's a gambit at later levels that, if the fighter achieves in hitting with it, automatically kills its target, no save. That's the kind of power a non-caster would need to dance with a caster.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

This solves nothing and leave Monks, Rogues, and the like high and dry. I would never use this house rule, I think it overall makes things worse.

 

[Duke Arioch]

Why would I want fighters to be balanced with casters?! Maybe it is just me, but I always imagined those pesky dress-wearing gramps with long beards to be event changers and mountain movers in any game/fairy tale/movie.
Every player knows (or should know) the part they are to play in a party. Fighters become meat shields. So what? I played a lot of melee characters who were overshadowed by casters. Still, I enjoyed it almost every time (a few times I didn't were not because the wiz guy blasted a dragon to smithereens, but because some players tend to play not for the sake of playing, but for the sake of beating the game and party members alike). It is not always the sheer damage that wins the day, though, and almost all overpowered casters choose spells that have utility over damaging ones.
Either way, if you are set in your decision to balance melee classes, allow them to have full initiator level (or even leave it at half) and allow them to pick up maneuvers at somewhat lower rate than martial adepts. It will at least give them more options towards the endgame.
Role>Roll.

 

[nonsi256]

This solves nothing and leave Monks, Rogues, and the like high and dry.

Which is why I suggested these rules.

 

[kitcik]

A simple fix to balance fighters vs. casters?

No.

 

[Dandu]

Role>Roll.

If one can roleplay just as well with balanced classes (and I see no indication to the contrary from me and my brother's experiences with 4e) then why should one not have balanced classes?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Why would I want fighters to be balanced with casters?!

Because, presumably, you have people playing both at your table and would like the players of the Fighter-types to have fun, too? Rather than just being forced into acting as second-stringers and meatshields to the "real movers and shakers"?

Role>Roll.

Yeah, you know, I've always felt that anyone who uses these terms unironically was not really worth talking with. Essentially, they've got some divide in their head that, at the table, just doesn't ever really exist for me - like you can't be both an effective character and an interesting / realized one.

In fact, it's almost like there's some sort of rule about that ...